The Importance of Drivers Education

Car accidents are one of the leading causes of death in America, and many of these accidents are preventable. This is due to many people having reckless driving habits, and because many people are not properly educated on driver safety. If more people were educated in driver safety, it would greatly impact the number of accidents we see on the roads. In this essay, I will discuss driver education, its importance, and my own experience of seeing car accidents and reckless driving. 

Driver education is important in driver safety and possibly reducing the number of deaths resulting from driving. It is important because when people are educated on a topic, they are more likely to follow through on what they learned. A great example of this is the idea of going to college. We pursue higher education not only to get a good job to secure our future financially but also to learn a skill and be educated on how to perform that skill correctly. For example, a surgeon performs surgeries on people for many reasons, like to fix a torn muscle or to remove a cancerous tumor. How do they know how to do that? It is because they are educated on how to do so efficiently and safely. If there was no place for surgeons to be educated on how to perform these tasks, they would not be qualified to do these surgeries and it could result in more deadly accidents because of having many unqualified surgeons. The same goes for driving. If people are not educated on the laws of driving and how to drive efficiently and safely, more people on the road will not follow the law and safety standards, which can lead to more accidents and deaths. 

There are a few things that can be done to reduce the number of deaths related to driving. One of them is using the correct safety measures while driving to reduce the chances of death by driving as much as possible. The easiest way to do this is by simply wearing a seatbelt. Wearing a seatbelt while driving is the number one way to protect ourselves from injuries and worse events. This is because seat belts keep us from being ejected from our seats, which is another event with a high chance of injury or death. Seat belts also spread the force of impact throughout the body and to larger bones like the hips and shoulders.   

Another step that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is for people to not commit risky behaviors before and while driving. The most common risky behavior before driving is drinking alcohol. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, “About 32% of all traffic crash fatalities in the United States involve drunk drivers.” That is almost one-third of all fatal car crashes! Drinking while driving has been a major problem for many years. A risky behavior while driving is speeding. Speeding is so common in our day and age, and many people don’t seem to care about the consequences. The NHTSA also mentioned that “Speeding accounts for nearly one-third of all fatalities on our roads and puts everyone at risk, including people in other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and people with disabilities.” That means that if we combine drunk driving fatalities and speeding fatalities, these two factors alone are responsible for two-thirds of all fatal car crashes in the United States. Fixing the issue with alcohol is very simple and can easily prevent deadly car accidents. This is by being aware that if you are going to drink, plan to get a ride from a friend who hasn’t drunk or by calling an Uber. By doing this, there is almost a 100% guarantee that the person who drank won’t get into a deadly car accident. For the speeding case, this is also preventable. People might speed up because they are late for work or an event. This can be resolved by leaving early and planning what you need the night before, so you don’t need to rush. If someone is peer-pressured by their friends to speed, they can tell their friends that they want to be a safe driver, and if they won’t comply, then they won’t drive together. These are some solutions to these risky driving behaviors. 

I have had an experience being in a car accident before. It wasn’t a major car accident, and nobody got hurt. This was back in 2012. Me and my family were going to IKEA near the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. We were on the freeway, and it was during rush hour, so it was jam-packed with cars. We were slowly cruising along, when suddenly, we felt a strong force from the back of the car. We were rear-ended. We pulled over to the side and checked out the damage. The right side of the bumper was badly damaged, but it didn’t affect the functioning of the car. We called the police and got everything settled. The driver that hit us must have been distracted or wasn’t paying attention. Thankfully this was only a minor accident because it could have been much worse. 

There are a few steps that I can take to become a better and safer driver. One of them is not using my phone when driving. I don’t text or watch things on my phone when driving, but I listen to podcasts when I drive, and sometimes when the video or podcast ends, I change it to the next one while I’m driving. Even though it takes about three seconds to do, that could be all it takes to get into a car accident. One way that I can fix this is by having the podcasts set up before I drive. If I knew I would finish a podcast during that car ride, I could start a new one instead and finish the other one at a later time when I’m not driving. One thing that I could do to help other people be safe on the roads is to tell them that when we are driving, we have to be considerate of others because we all share these roads. If we all had the mindset that we could endanger others by committing selfish acts, we would have much fewer car accidents than we already do. 

To conclude, this was my essay on driver education and driver safety. I believe that if we all take steps to become better drivers, we could all keep each other safe and lower the chances of deadly car crashes.